L.A. Fashion Week Spring 2011: PolyChic

Venezuelan designer Ela Acosta took the word “recyclable” seriously.

Almost everything in her Spring 2011 collection, shown at an Oct. 17 installation at Concept L.A. Fashion Week at the Spring Arts Tower in downtown Los Angeles, was made of polyurethane.

Acosta shaped her plastic into origami-style pieces that were geometrically perfect and attractive. Silhouettes included miniskirts, corrugated tops and an evening gown. One of Acosta’s more unusual looks was a swatch of silver-colored corrugated plastic wrapped around a woman’s chest, giving her the appearance of a gun maul ready to blast off an AK-47 with an ample supply of bullets.—Deborah Belgum